Cape Cod Healthcare cuts medical programs

HYANNIS — Cape Cod Healthcare has shuttered three medical programs, including a long-standing health clinic at Barnstable High School, to pay for additional physicians and nurse practitioners.

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By MARY ANN BRAGG

capecodtimes.com

By MARY ANN BRAGG

Posted Aug. 28, 2009 at 2:00 AM

By MARY ANN BRAGG
Posted Aug. 28, 2009 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

HYANNIS — Cape Cod Healthcare has shuttered three medical programs, including a long-standing health clinic at Barnstable High School, to pay for additional physicians and nurse practitioners.

The health care company, which manages Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital, will save about $700,000 with the closures and use that money for new hires, said Michael Lauf, Cape Cod Healthcare's chief operating officer.

The nonprofit corporation will close the nine-year-old health clinic at Barnstable High School in Hyannis and a one-year-old health clinic at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich, affecting about 800 patients. The company will close its nine-year-old diabetes education program in three Cape locations, which serve about 1,200 clients, and end use of a Visiting Nurse Association mobile van that was meant to help uninsured and under-insured residents get medical attention. An uncounted number of clients — likely hundreds — received referrals or services annually through the van, he said.

About three or four jobs will be eliminated with the changes, while other employees will be offered alternative positions in the company, hospital spokesman David Reilly said.

Cape Cod Healthcare is ending the services to focus more on its hospital-based mission, to maintain long-term financial stability and to expand the pool of primary-care physicians for all residents, Lauf said. Generally the people who received services through these programs will be redirected to similar services through a primary-care physician, he said.

The company plans to recruit 36 new primary-care physicians, specialists such as endocrinologists for diabetes care, and nurse practitioners, Reilly said.

The recruiting comes at a time when Cape Cod Healthcare has gone through a series of primary-care physician departures that — combined with national shortages — have left the company looking for help.

The health care company is the Cape's largest, with about 450 physicians and 4,500 employees. The company comprises the two hospitals, the Visiting Nurse Association home health agency, a nursing and rehabilitation facility, an assisted-living facility and several medical affiliates.

At Cape Cod Regional Technical High School, the health clinic, with its full-time nurse practitioner, was a back-up to the full-time school nurse, said school Supt. William Fisher. The clinic allowed students and teachers to quickly take care of small medical emergencies — like a cut finger or stubbed toe — and return to class, rather than spend a day at a doctor's office down the road, Fisher said. Students and staff used the clinic, primarily paying for the service through their health insurance. No one was turned away if they couldn't pay, and the clinic didn't cost the school anything, Fisher said.

"It was in its infancy stages for us," he said. "We're sad to see it go."

Barnstable school Supt. Patricia Grenier did not return two calls yesterday for comment. Grenier told school committee members recently about the loss of the clinic, said committee member Ralph Cahoon. She and other school administrators are looking into alternatives, Cahoon said.